Maisie White and
he was on the point of remarking that he had just left her, but changed
his mind.

"Does she know anything about--about her father?" he asked.

The colonel smiled.

"Why, no--unless you've told her."

"I'm not on those terms," said Pinto savagely. "I'm getting tired of
that girl's airs and graces, colonel, after what we've done for her!"

"You'll get tireder, Pinto," said a voice from the end of the table and
he turned round to meet the laughing eyes of Lollie Marsh.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I've been out taking a look at her to-day," she said, and the colonel
scowled at her.

"You were out taking a look at something else if I remember rightly," he
said quietly. "I told you to get after Stafford King."

"And I got after him," she said, "and after the girl too."

"What do you mean?"

"That's a bit of news for you, isn't it?" She was delighted to drop the
bombshell: "you can't shadow Stafford King without crossing the tracks
of Maisie White."

The colonel uttered an exclamation.

"What do you mean?" he asked again.

"Didn't you know they were acquainted? Didn't you know that Stafford
King goes down to Horsham to see her, and takes her to dinner twice a
week?"

They looked at one another in consternation. Maisie White was the
daughter of a man who, next to the colonel, had been the most daring
member of the gang, who had organised more coups than any other man,
save its leader. The news that the daughter of Solomon White was meeting
the Chief of the Criminal Intelligence Department, was incredible and
stunning.

"So that's it, is it?" said the colonel, licking his dry lips. "That's
why Solomon White's fed up with the life and wants to break away."

He turned to Pinto Silva, whose face was set and hard.

"I thought you were keen on that girl, Pinto," he said coarsely. "We
left the way open to you. What do you know about it?"

"Nothing," said the man shortly. "I don't believe it."

"Don't believe it," broke in the girl. "Listen! There was a matinee at
the Orpheum to-day and King went there. I followed him in and got a seat
next to him and tried to get friendly. But he had only eyes for the girl
on the stage, and I might as well have been the paper on the wall for
all the notice he took of me. After her turn, he went out and waited for
her at the stage door. They went to Roymoyers for tea. I went back to
the theatre and saw her dresser. She is the woman I recommended when
P